Tom Verde

Tom Verde (tomverde.pressfolios.com) is a regular contributor to AramcoWorld.. His "Malika" series, on historical Muslim queens, won "Best Series" awards from both the National Federation of Press Women and the Connecticut Press Club in 2017.

Articles by Tom Verde

It started out as many successful businesses do: with a bit of vision, a prime location and some family connections. From its first Arabic text in 1732 to today, Brill’s books helped build the scholarship of what is today broadly called Middle East and Asian studies.

Braving sniper bullets, Mustafa Jahi and friends carried the historic volumes of the Gazi Husrev-beg Library from one hiding place to another throughout the three-year Siege of Sarajevo. Last year, the library found a new, permanent haven—close to where it was founded nearly 500 years ago.

Deftly symbolizing an aggrieved citizen’s quest for justice, the rightful heir to the Sultanate of Delhi donned a red robe on the eve of battle. She won the people’s support for four years of prosperous rule, but her rivals proved insatiable.

First woman to claim an Egyptian throne since Cleopatra, Shajarat Al-Durr won an Ayyubid sultan and then a crusader war; founded a Mamluk dynasty and ruled as sultana de facto far longer than de jure— until her storied, violent end.

Though her Turkish name Hürrem meant “laughing one,” she proved better at breaking barriers —ﬁrst by marrying the sultan, and later by directing more of the Ottoman Empire’s affairs than any woman before her.

Wife and mother, businesswoman, fashion designer, real estate developer, garden plan-ner, philanthropist devoted to women, battle commander, tiger hunter: For the woman with a royal name meaning “Light of the World,” those were all part of Nur Jahan’s main job—running the Mughal empire.

When she governed the Moroccan coastal city of Tétouan, the Spanish accused her of organizing piracy, while at home she won respect from both Moroccans and post-1492 Andalusian émigrés. On land and sea, hers was a life charted by crisis.

In the Middle Ages, bajda olives—from the Arabic for “white”—were prized on this Mediterranean archipelago, but by the late 20th century they were nearly gone. It took a retired expert in gems and jewels to revive the olives knights once called “Maltese pearls.”

The translation of hieroglyphs in 1822 culminated more than 1,000 years of efforts by Romans, Arabs and Europeans. Insights from 10th-century Assyrian scholar Ibn Wahshiyya al-Nabati helped build the understanding that the Egyptian symbols worked in three distinct ways.